


remember me, and let the love we have live on

by civilorange



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternative Universe - Flashbacks, Angst, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 16:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14877473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civilorange/pseuds/civilorange
Summary: You close your eyes and pretend it’s tomorrow. “Promise me you’ll be okay?”“Aren’t I always?” There's nothing glad about it, nothing happy.// or: Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor through the years.





	remember me, and let the love we have live on

**Author's Note:**

> my second foray into supercorp; how'd i do? should i stick around? i love the idea of these two, even if i've never actually watched anything past season 1. so like i said on tumblr the other night, this is a 9,000 word character study into a character i've never actually watched. which seems a bit much for even me, but, what are you gonna do? hope you guise enjoy, even though i'm an angst goblin that apparently has no other setting. stream-of-consciousness, and no editing; because as well as being an angst goblin, i'm a grammar troll too. blame **randomthingsthatilike123** , and her hashtags on **[this](http://randomthingsthatilike.com/post/174547334217/lenakluthor-nathaniel-orion-g-k)** gifset; yes, that really was all it took.

You know.

You don’t realize it for a while, but you know.

.

You‘re tired—so tired.

You wake up in pain, wake up knowing you are—somehow—still alive all these years later. The sun blisters just a bit brighter than it did before, and the sky tastes just a little bit artificial. Like it’s only half real some days. You know everything you’ve done to make that so—advancements, good and bad, that made this half real world possible.

The sky sits blistering blue and crackless, and you wonder what tomorrow might look like—tomorrow, because you’re already forgetting yesterday. Like a memory of a dream, they drift up and away without even bothering to try and keep them. The sky is blue, endless, and you want to push your fingers up through the color and into what must surely be beyond it—whatever’s there, whatever’s next…

Your bones crack and your joints ache, and you don’t have any more consideration for the promises of men in white coats—you’ve defied possibility, you’ve escaped reality, and here you are at the end, just as you were in the beginning.

Alone—save a shadow.

Your shadow—and sometimes hers.

You feel every step up from the sole of your foot, the press and pinch of your nerves reminding you of so many forgotten pains over the years—a lot of hurt that’s only sometimes literal, despite how much those figurative wounds do pain you. You feel them in your heart—which in, and of, itself is only twenty-five percent yours—and something that you might think of as your soul. That tetherless ache in your chest that’s made entirely of _maybes_ and _could’ves_ , that’s blueprinted in dreams and nightmares, and all those tomorrows you never did quite reach.

.

_You’re an idiot that’s falling in love with an idea._

_Supergirl kisses like tomorrow—something impossible, and known, and always a little too far away. You want to laugh at how her feet don’t quite touch the ground when you pull back. Her eyes closed, her lips wet and inviting—you want to say so much, ask so much, but you can wait—you can worry about that later—because you just need to kiss her again._

_“You’ll be the death of me, Lena Luthor.” She murmurs, and your heart jack-rabbits in your chest—your fingers curl so easily into the give of her suit’s collar, tugging her through the air just enough that you can feel the warmth of her through her suit._

_“Only if you’re good, Supergirl._

.

Your grandson pretends that he isn’t waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs—a darling boy of ten who puffs up just a little as you round the corner and see him. He’s everything good you’ve ever seen in yourself—everything decent, and right, and content—there’s none of your brother’s madness, none of your mother’s indifference, and none of your father’s greed. You’d always had a bit of a funhouse mirror when considering yourself with the idea of nature and nurture—you could only see the fingerprints of those who made you are, impressions of their influence.

“Grandma,” he scolds, “you’re not supposed to take the stairs by yourself.” One fall— _one fall_ —and you’ve been relegated to the bottom floor of your own home.

“Says who?” You counter.

“Says mommy,” he goes on, extending his arm to escort you the rest of the _impossible_ trek to the kitchen.

“Well, I don’t have to listen to mommy, so there.” Cody Adrian Luthor giggles into your shoulder, and your heart aches for this boy you’d give the world—and more—to. Who doesn’t know a life of heroics, and a life of tragedy—the age of superheroes had been a short one, all things considered. Twenty years, a flash in the pan, and then the world self-regulated—Superman died, Supergirl went missing, and everyone that fell into the vacuum of their lost power simply—didn’t matter.

Strange how things happen.

“Is that right, mother?” Your youngest daughter is all dark hair and bright eyes, and it would be a little narcissistic to say she looks exactly like you, because she’s always been a gorgeous girl. A little tan like her father, _tall_ like him too, but everything else was you. “I didn’t realize you had an MD to go with all those PhDs.”

“If I knew that was all it would take, I would have gotten one.” You won’t admit you’re tired when you sit down at the kitchen table, but you have to suck air down through gritted teeth. Moment pass in forevers, and you slouch—just a little—and pretend.

You remember yesterday, instead of dreading tomorrow.

.

_“I always told myself I didn’t tell you because we’d have time,” Kara—no, Supergirl—is standing in the orange glow of burning forest, the red bright in her blue, blue eyes. Her clothes smolder from where she’d taken the brunt of a pile of flaming branches in your stead. The clothes smoke, and she smacks out whatever fire dares catch. Her glasses have spun off into the burning dusk, but she doesn’t look lost._

_“Your—,” you knew, a part of you always knew, but it was nothing like having something confirmed that can bring reality into focus. “You lied to me.” The air burns, and the sky flashes, but it’s your heart that’s in danger._

_“It’s not like that,” Kara insists, stepping closer, brushing another smattering a flame from her shoulder. “It’s not just—…”_

_“You didn’t trust me,” you say, because there’s that terrible little voice in the back of your mind—that sounds an awful lot like your brother—saying that you shouldn’t have expected anything else. You’re **a** **Luthor** , and no one will ever change their mind about a Luthor._

_“No!” Said loudly, quickly, and she’s suddenly just there, her hands bracketing your arms, and her fingers warm and firm. “I trust you Lena, I do, but I didn’t—I didn’t want anything to change.” She’s talking softly, and the forest keeps burning, and you want to say this can wait—but it absolutely can’t, and you’re scared, and sad, and something in your chest thumps loudly._

_“Telling you I’m Supergirl isn’t—it isn’t just telling you I’m Supergirl. It’s telling you I’m Kara Zor El, it’s telling you I’m the last of my kind because my cousin doesn’t even **remember** Krypton, it’s—it’s—I liked being just-Kara around you.” She’s crying—but not—they’re in the lashes of her blue, blue eyes and you don’t know how you never noticed that they’re the exact same shade. Blue, on blue, on blue—with a little bit of stardust in the black of her pupil._

_You’re angry, you are, but you like being just-Lena around her, too. You like pretending that you don’t go see your brother every Thursday, you don’t like reading every death threat sent to you in the mail—you don’t like being an **idea**_ _before you’re a person. You’re angry, but you understand._

_That bitter little Luthor part of you hates that you understand._

_“You’re still just-Kara,” you say, and you can only think about how you’ve kissed this woman, you’ve felt the velvet soft of her lips, and the half-hitched catch of her breath when you sooth your tongue against her bottom lip. “You’ll always be Kara.”_

_She smiles, and you do too._

_“But maybe you can be just-Kara somewhere that **isn’t** burning to the ground?”_

_._

“I’m optimistic,” the doctor says, looking at the brain scan on the wall like it’ll show him something different this time, something that isn’t akin to a death sentence. You’ve been battling, and fighting, and enduring for three years now, and you aren’t optimistic—you’re tired.

“Oh, you are?” You ask blithely, because at this point these appointments are just to make your family happy—a daughter who has basically taken over your business, and grandchildren that shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than school work and summer vacation. “Wonderful.”

He’s always optimistic, he’s always expecting the best, and you’re beginning to think he gets commission on belief—they can’t _all_ believe the best will happen.

“Oh yes,” he turns, arms crossed with his chin perched delicately in his palm. “The studies in Europe have been administered with wonderful results." More trials, more hoops to jump through—your hair has just grown back from the last _maybe_. At your shoulders and much too thin, but you don’t have to wear hats anymore, which is enough of a positive for the rest of your life.

However long that may be.

“I’m so glad for them,” you hope they are as wonderful as he thinks, you hope that someone—somewhere—is going to live a long life because of them. You want them to cherish tomorrow.

But—…

.

_“I love you,” she’s saying it dressed as Supergirl, but she’s all Kara Danvers right now—nervous, and flushed, and full of so much damned guilt. “I love you so much, Lena.”_

_You know there’s a **but** coming and you’re preparing yourself for it—for the inevitability that is your broken heart. You’ve tried, **she’s** tried, but something always stands in the way—something horrible, something red, and bright, and daunting. You told yourself this was always going to be the case; that this was just writing on the wall that you didn’t wish to acknowledge._

_“But—…,” she continues, and you laugh at how a single word changes **everything**._

_“But you love her more,” you finish for her, because if something is true about Kara Danvers, it’s that she’s always been more than a little bit in love with Cat Grant. A woman whose shadow extends to the horizon, and who you’ve grown cold in the wake of—it was only a matter of time before pride meant less than the love of a good woman._

_Not even Cat’s **that** prideful._

_“Differently,” Kara shakes her head, looking devastated, and the worst part is you want to make this easier for her—want to ease her burden, want to sooth that ache. “Longer, maybe,” she’s whispering, and not stepping any closer—like you’re a black hole and she’s afraid to get caught in your orbit._

_“It’s okay,” you’re breathing deep enough that your lungs hurt, that it hurts more than everything figurative happening in your heart, and in your soul. “I always kind of knew it.”_

_“I’m sorry,” she says, but love is never something someone should apologize for._

_“It’s okay, Kara.” It isn’t, it might never be, but you’ll say it anyway. What’s one more lie? “Go on. I want you to be happy.”_

_That, at least, is the truth._

.

You ride in silence, the radio turned so far down that you can’t even hear it anymore—easier to think, though you don’t imagine being with your thoughts right now is the best solution. Your driver hasn’t tried to make conversation, he never does after your appointments, but something wants him to ask. Wants him to wonder what life-altering decision you’ve made today.

You’ve made too many life-altering decisions in your time on this third rock from the sun.

“There’s a new treatment,” you say aloud, and you catch his eyes in the rearview mirror—Simon’s been with you since he was twenty, and he’s now pushing forty six, and you realize you’ve only spared a few handfuls of words with him. With this man who probably knows more about you from simply being there than the father of your children.

“Ma’am?” He asks.

“Nothing, nothing,” you hedge, waving a hand through the air to push away the words you spoke. The confession you were about to make.

.

_Your brother kills her cousin—it’s poetic in the worst way, symbolic like a broken heart. Metropolis will never be able to forget the horror, the memory of that red and blue streak falling limply from orbit. The news feeds focus on Superman—on the hero without a pulse that was rushed to Metropolis general—and that piece of you that will always love your brother is bitter that he’s never mentioned._

_Oh, they say he did it—that he killed, and tortured, and ruined, but they never say he dies._

_And he does._

_You get the call four hours after the live feeds went down, hours after the clean-up crews began looking for survivors in the rubble of a parking garage—green noxious smoke still lingering behind. They call, and they ask you if you’re Lena Luthor—but you already know. You’re not sure where you felt it first, your bones, or your blood, but you knew your brother was dead long before the police informed you._

_“Lena,” the way she says your name these days is faint, like fingertips against the back of your neck as you sleep. Light, and easily mistaken for something else._

_“My brother killed your cousin,” your brother also killed himself—suicide by obsession. You can’t face her, can’t apologize for something that bites at your heart. All gnashing teeth and rumbling growls._

_You wonder why she isn’t there—why she isn’t with her wife, Cat—but when you think about it, it only makes sense that she’s here. A Super, and a Luthor—always together, in good and bad. You wonder what those dead men would think of this—you know Clark never warmed up to you, and you know Lex abhorred your fondness for Supergirl._

_“I’m alone,” Kara says it like shattering glass on a moonless night, brittle and cold and unable to be repaired—not perfectly, never again perfectly. “I’m finally—…after all this. I’m finally alone.”_

_Your chair squeaks as you turn, as you look at her for the first time—you want to tell her she isn’t alone, she’ll never be alone—but you’re just standing up and hugging her. Tighter than tight, and you don’t wonder why she isn’t hugging back—she’s rigid, and tense, and you wonder if she’s allowed herself to cry yet._

_“I’m here,” you promise instead of forever—because you can do that. You can be here for her now._

.

_“Shouldn’t you go home?” It’s late and the stars are out en-mass—a million-billion little twinkles; you remember being young and trying to count them. Starting at the horizon and counting, and counting, and counting until your eyes grew heavy and you had to stop for the night. You promised yourself you’d remember where you left off—you’d remember that you were at eighteen-thousand and six tomorrow night, and twenty-one thousand and one-hundred a fifty-two the night after that._

_But then it felt like you were counting the same star—over, and over, and over—and you stopped._

_Just stopped._

_It was like that simple realization of futility had ruined everything you’d thought until then—and you’re wondering now, twenty sum years later, if this effort of futility will do much the same. A Super and a Luthor._

_“Cat’ll make me feel better,” she admits, hands laced over her stomach, eyes jumping from twinkle to twinkle. “She always does, and I love her for it—but this…” She doesn’t need to say it, because you feel it too._

_“You’ll only accept it if you hurt,” you’re in the same boat—same terrible boat—and you’re trying not to crumble, because Lex wasn’t to you what Clark was to her. Lex was an ideal, something you cherish from younger years when he loved you most of all—before obsession, and madness, and greed clouded everything good and bright about your brother._

_“Yeah,” Kara trails off, and you don’t realize she’s looking at you until you feel something of a shiver up your spine—this girl, this wonderful, extraterrestrial girl, that you love so very much. “I’m sorry he’s dead,” she says, and your heart clenches, because you see in her eyes that she means it. “I’m sorry your brother’s dead.”_

_You promised yourself when you watched the news hours ago that you wouldn’t cry—that you’d take this is the proper Luthor way and swallow it down. But Kara’s finally let the tear fall down her cheeks, and you can’t help mirroring it—a noise breaks the silence, and you realize it’s you. A keening whine that bubbles and cracks, and then you’re curling into her side. She’s your best friend, even if she’ll never be more, and you take solace in her warmth._

_In her love._

.

You walk through the park commemorating her with a smile—it’s not as large as the city originally planned, not as grand and exploitative. There’s only the smallest of statues at the heart of the park—a plaque dedicated to a hero who was lost too soon. The newest generation thinks of heroes in the most abstract of concepts—people in bright colors saving the day over, and over, and over. She looks so colorless and bland here in the shade, but you always thought it made more sense.

 _Stronger together_ written in bold text at the base—chipping with time, aging well all things considered. There’s a few people loitering, some clustering around the information plates that tell of a distant planet—of a girl’s struggle through the stars to her new home. You know the whole thing by memory—penned by Cat in her final days with something of a wry amusement.

Long before it was needed—because Cat fucking Grant always did know her hero best.

“You know how I am with last words,” no one had thought Cat particularly funny at the time—especially the subject of this statue—but now, years and decades removed, you think it’s probably perfect. A big emphatic _fuck you_ to time; charming. Quaint. If a billionaire egomaniac could ever be quant—not that you’re really one to judge.

You ignore the lingering bodyguard not too far off—one too many assassination attempts means not even you will win a fight against your daughter to go about without one—and tip your chin up to marvel at how _lifelike_ the rendering is. There’ll always be something missing—a life, an expression—but it’s as close as a statue will ever be to reality. This is miles, and leagues, and eons better than that monstrosity in the center of Metropolis for Superman.

Something large, and impersonal for a man who was still a bit of a boy at the end.

 _On New Year’s Eve 2031, Supergirl flew out to meet an alien armada with the Justice League—_ …you know the words, know the outcome, but you never like reading it. Never like thinking about all those yesterdays that hurt—all those _figurative_ hurts. You’d actually been shot twice that “invasion”, once in the shoulder—the scar numb and somehow still aching even decades later—and a through-and-through in the thigh.

 _—and when the smoke cleared, Supergirl was never found_. It’s how it always ends, how this story is always told—you’ll never be able to change that.

It’s written in stone, after all.

.

_Whatever you thought yourself capable of feeling before pales in comparison to holding your child for the first time—small, and squirming, and warmer than warm. She’s a little red, and darker than you still, and your heart just **clenches** when you think about everything waiting for her. You can’t think of the horrible and terrible facts of life—only the wonderful things she’ll witness. Sunrises and sunsets, and all the splendor between. Spring afternoons and winter nights—hot chocolate and running through the sprinklers._

_“Oh Lena,” a hushed whisper, soft enough that you could easily miss it if it wasn’t for the nearly visible vibration of joy coming from your Kryptonian best friend. “She’s gorgeous.” You’re crying, but they’re happy tears—which seemed like impossible things until now._

_“She is,” you whisper, watching her nose scrunch and her face wrinkle. “She really is.”_

_“So what did you settle on? Lindsey? Laura? Lexa?” Kara thinks she’s being funny, and you let her know what you think about that by flicking her in the back of the hand. At least she has the decency of acting like it hurt, even if you know it absolutely didn’t._

_“You think you’re being cute,” you drawl, throat still a bit sore from hours of loud cursing. Rubbing the back of your finger against your daughter’s cheek, you grin when she snuffles. “Isn’t that right, baby girl? Aunt Kara thinks she’s being cute.”_

_“Leighlough? Luis? Lancaster?”_

_“You better stop before I kick you out,” you chide, looking up for the first time since she entered. Designer labels that don’t crease or crinkle because of the suit you know she had hidden under them. You will definitely admit that Cat’s fashion influence was a gift to the world—the woman definitely knows Kara’s lines intimately._

_You try not to think about it._

_“Caroline,” you say eventually, and smile because your little wrinkled baby girl squirms and a small fist clenches open and closed. “Caroline Alexandra Luthor.” It’s that limping little part of your heart that named her—after missing people, both long gone and absolutely present. And you **know** which one’s worse, even if your heart’s being stubborn about it._

_“Caroline,” she’s a warm weight on the edge of your bed as she leans in to lightly touch the mess of dark curls already on your daughters head. “Caroline, you’re pretty lucky. You’re mom’s kind of great.” You should probably chide her, that’s what you do these days—but you lean back and try to imagine a different future. One where she was **here** for the birth, one where she helped you decide…_

_You’re happy, you are—happier than you ever thought possible—but there’s always be those **maybes** …_

.

“Mrs. Luthor!” The voice is far off and loud, and you _don’t_ slow down. You’re walking back to your car, back to where Simon is surely idealing despite what the green-laws dictate. “Mrs. Luthor!” Closer now, and you’re not surprised—at your age you don’t really outrun many people. Especially twenty-somethings with something to prove.

“This might be mistaken as stalking,” you intone, hands folding in front of you, eyebrow arched. The boy’s young—really young—and you can only laugh at the hilariousness of being hunted down by James Olsen’s grandson. A boy with a camera that’s probably just a little too old for commercial use, but you know how sentimental the Olsen’s can be. “And it’s _Miss_ , I never married.”

“Right, right,” he’s big like his grandfather—like his father—and tries to seem smaller, and you wish this wasn’t a world where that’s still necessary. All those real things left over, not all of them are you, and you wished you had enough time to change that. “I—how are you?”

“Fine, Mister Olsen, and you’d better not expect to be taking a photograph of me.” No, you don’t look much like the Lena Luthor the world expects—who defied odds, and set trends, and who endeavored to remake the world every few decades. No, right now you’re old, and tired, and a little glass eyed because you shouldn’t be out walking by yourself—however much you don’t want to admit it.

“No, no,” he assures, pressing a hand over the lens like that means something—and with such a good honorable boy, it does. “I—uhm, no, I’m not here for work. I was going through Grandpa Jimmy’s things—it was all up in the attic, and I came across this.” He fishes a photograph from his pocket, something a little crinkled, and decades old.

James Olsen—it’s been a while since you heard that name.

The two of you never really saw exactly eye to eye—the height jokes were intolerable—but you tried for the third person in the photograph. It was after Cat passed—not long after, you can tell, because Kara doesn’t really mean her smile, even if she’s dressed like Supergirl in the picture. “You know your grandfather knew Superman and Supergirl,” you say, taking the photograph.

“Well, yeah, but,” he hesitates, just a little. “I didn’t know you did. It’s kind of—…”

You know what was taught in the schools—about mad Lex Luthor and his xenophobic quests of lunacy—about the Battle of Metropolis, and the pilgrimages every year for the people who wanted to remember the heroes who fell too quickly out of vogue.

“We were close, Supergirl and I. It’s been ages now since she died.” Kara’s young in the photo, unlined and smiling with only half the light you know she has inside. You and Jimmy bother look older—the time sitting on your face in the unlikeliest of places. “She saved my life more often then I’d like to admit, but I saved her too.”

“You did?” He’s excited, and you can only shake your head. _How_ did you get roped into this mess of insanity? With these people that are good, and kind, and right—the Schotts, and Danvers, and Olsens, and even the Grants.

“Oh yes,” you grin, turning the photo so you don’t have to look at your young face—not when you feel this impossibly old. “Spaceship heroics and everything. I was a bonafied bad ass, Mister Olsen.”

He looks young and hopeful. “Tell me?”

.

_Your shoulder hurts and you’re worried that you can’t get the bleeding to stop—you have two children at home waiting for you to return, **needing** you to return, but this has ‘the end of the world’ written all over it. Not that you’re not intimately familiar with the feeling—sometimes it feels like the world’s been ending for decades, and you’re finally noticing that it’s not all just a bluff._

_Your fingers are red and warm, even if the rest of you is growing cold—the wound is only an entrance, which means the bullet’s still inside. You feel it grinding against the bone, itching at the socket every time you’re stupid enough to move a little too much. The aliens—a telepathic race determined to enslave humanity, bore—had enthralled half the population of National City and folded them into their standing army—their invasion force._

_An elderly gentleman with a pistol had been who actually shot you, even if you know the reality was much more daunting—it burned, and stung, and you curse more in an hour than you probably have since your daughter was born._

_“Fuck,” it’s appropriate, and just a little satisfying._

_You’re dizzy, and your mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and you try not to imagine that you might not get home—the loud **buzz** of the device on your belt preventing the majority of the aliens’ telepathic influence. You feel the tug, that little yank on your thoughts that insist you turn your gun on yourself— **Earth doesn’t need you** , it whispers, and you’re beginning to forget why you’re ignoring it._

_“Lena,” **that’s** why, **she’s** why. She’s covered in soot, and bleeding from the temple—no more skirt, no more thigh high boots. The armor form fitting and the dark blue of her suit looks more functional than eye catching—she’d told you one evening that it was like the suits worn by her people’s police force. The **S** on her chest is deep gold, with an outline of red—embossed and brilliant._

_“K—Kar—,” the words taste wrong, metallic and sharp, like they’re fighting to come out. You blink past the black dots and force those invading thought away—you’re Lena Luthor, you’re not someone else’s pawn. “Can’t say this looks good, Supergirl.”_

_“I have a plan,” she says, blue eyes bright in the gloom, and her hands’re warm against your cheek—soft. “We’re moving out to meet the Armada.” Which is exactly **opposite** of what everyone had agreed on—you’re a member of the League these days, a trusted ally, and you distinctly remember the agreement._

_“They have Kryptonite,” you say, which you really shouldn’t have to—but Kara only smiles._

_“I have this amazing suit you built me,” she taps two fingers of the hand not cradling your cheek against the deep yellow light pulsing along the edge of her family crest. You’d been determined to counter the meteorite’s influence—and had only ever mitigated it. Lessened it. “I’ll be fine.”_

_“And if you’re not.”_

_Kara smiles—she always smiles—and you wonder how much it hurts her. To smile through the pain, the loss, the **everything**. You want to tell her she doesn’t have to smile for you, but you don’t think you could stomach a world like that._

_“I’m the one that lives,” she says it with something like sadness, but with her thumb brushing over your cheek—you can barely hear it. The black dots swarm and spread, and you must lose some time because you’re suddenly in her arms. Wrapped up in the warmth of her, and you **smell** the scent of her—ozone, and flowers, and a lungful of smoke._

_You close your eyes and pretend it’s tomorrow. “Promise me you’ll be okay?”_

_“Aren’t I always?” There's nothing glad about it, nothing happy._

_“Don’t,” you say—ask, **plead**._

_“It’s okay,” she’s whispering, and there’s the press of lips against your forehead. Light, warm—a goodbye, even if she won’t say the words. “I love you, you know that, right?”_

_You do—damn it all to hell, but you do._

_._

_You watch her fall—like her cousin—a streak of red and blue against the night sky._

_Her motionless body crashing through black ocean waves._

_._

_They never find her._

_._

The lobby of L-Corp hasn’t changed in the decades it’s been under your leadership—frosted glass, open concept, and more exposed metal than is probably necessary. You like the modern feel of it, even when everything else seems to be going the way of exposed brick and salvaged wood.

“We weren’t expecting you today, Miss Luthor,” the security guard at the front desk smiles—young, but everyone’s young in comparison these days.

“A few things need my John Hancock,” you drawl, nose wrinkling just a little—paperwork that really doesn’t _need_ you; not anymore, but the promise of routine keeps you showing up.

Day, after day, after day.

There’s the spot in the lobby someone almost convinced the board to put a statue of Lex, but you’d dashed those hopes long before they could really manifest. It stands empty and waiting—and you pretend you don’t know the proposals sitting in folders for when _you’re_ no longer around. You’d tell them not to bother, that you don’t want to be immortalized in a glorified vestibule, but the words never happen. They never form—in your mind they’re _no_ , but sometimes—only sometimes—they’re _thank you_.

It’d be nice to be remembered.

.

_The doctors try to keep you, try to make you stay until the stitches don’t itch and the red-pucker around the bullet wound doesn’t seem so angry._

_But you’re Lena Luthor, and you sign yourself out._

_The news plays the tracking over, and over, and over—a bright explosion in lower orbit, the brilliant flash of orange and red, and something that looks like green miasma filters across the sky just as the sun dares to begin its climb from the horizon._

_The cameras have no difficulty finding her—each one finding her in the cracking dawn. Including CatCo._

_You feel a shadow of horror for the company’s late founder._

_She’s pin wheeling through the cracking dark, her cape shredded, and her limbs loose and at odd angles to her body. A falling star tumbling from orbit._

_None of the news channels pull their footage of how her body **cracks** against the black water—how the salt water sprays and sputters, and when they pull in close—there’s nothing there. No hint of where she had fallen._

_“She’s alive,” Alexandra Danvers says from where she can’t take her eyes off the screen—she’s numb, and she looks it. “She has to be.” You tried reaching out, tried giving comfort—but she still believes in her heart of heart that Kara’s out there somewhere._

_That her sister survived._

_You don’t want to live in a world where anything else could be true, but you’re a pragmatist—it’s your best, **and worst** , quality and you can only do the math. Terminal velocity from lower orbit on someone who was more human that she’s used to being—powerless and soft._

_“Alex…,” you say her name because anything else would be cruel._

_._

_You don’t imagine anyone in her life expected to outlive her._

_._

_You imagine Lois thought the same about Clark._

_._

She knocks on the door like everyone else.

.

Still young and beautiful, the years she’s lived existing only in the depthless blue of her eyes—the antithesis of the sky on mornings like this. Full of cracks, fissuring from all edges—broken little pieces stitched together with the help of eternity and a relentless heart. These days she isn’t the girl you knew—not entirely—she’s still brave, still selfless, and still so full of belief that it makes your teeth ache—she loved you before you could properly love yourself, and that had meant the world to you.

“The doctor told me you aren’t going through with the treatments,” are the first words out of her mouth, which you knew would be the case. Standing there with eyebrows pinching and mouth something of a purse, you want to tell her that for all her years she’s still impossibly young. She’s grown into herself in ways that only time will allow—her eyes darker, and her temper doesn’t show up much at all—except apparently _now_.

You always did warrant a reaction.

“I’m tired,” you say, leaning back in your chair, listening to the creak not sure if it’s your bones or the wheels. “And I’m done.”

“You don’t get to just _decide_ you’re done,” she’s not _angry_ , no, she’s that maddening middle ground where she’s sad, and anxious, and wondering all the wrong questions. Trying to find blame when there is none. “He thinks this one will work, he _promised_ me.”

“He did no such thing,” you reply, arching a brow when she steps up against the edge of your desk—you _know_ those hands pressing against the surface could rend this entire building to pieces if she desired, but you also know she would never. A cautious god, a careful one. “He is hopeful, they’re _always_ hopeful, but I think it’s time to throw in the towel.”

“ _No_ ,” she’s adamant, she’s all manner of things you don’t think she’s been since Cat died—since her world crumbled again, and she had to rebuild. “No.” This impossible girl destined to build herself anew every lifetime.

“Kara,” softly, knowing she’ll always be able to hear you. “Kara, it’s alright.”

Kara shakes her head, large and violent shivers wracking her body, and you ache for the years that it would have been nothing to get up and embrace her—pull her close and breathe in the cosmic dust on her skin. Kiss the constellation of freckles on her shoulder and promise her forever. Back when you’d been brash, and young, and full of a thirst that seemed insatiable.

But today is now, and instead of getting up, she comes to you. Gentle hand against the arm of your chair, rolling you back just far enough that she could fall before you and press her forehead against your knees. Your fingers curl through her hair, and you try not to think about how strange it is to see your arthritic knuckles against her golden crown—they’ve been like this for almost ten years, but it’ll always seem like something that only happened to _other_ people.

Growing old.

“Kara,” you coo, softer than soft, “sweetheart.” She’s absolutely silent as she cries, and you think that’s the worst part—how quietly she suffers. Your pants grow damp with her tears, and you begin to feel the curl of her hands into the fabric, the _stit_ as a stitch threatens to pop.

.

_She’s been dead a month when you finally say it out loud._

_“Kara’s dead,” just to yourself, just to the dark of your bedroom. It’s raining, and every flash of lightning is another promise dashed against black ocean water. **Crack**. Black glass and depthless nights._

_Everyone in your house is asleep and has been for hours—but you can’t. Every time you close your eyes you feel small and claustrophobic—the black seeping in at every edge until there’s nothing left of you._

_A blue and red streak— **crack**._

_You’re still in a sling, your arm still hurts—but it’s the numbness that makes you grit your teeth. The cold nothing where the bullet had entered, had severed a trunk nerve. You ache to feel it—the burn, the hurt—but there’s nothing._

_“Kara’s dead,” again, just to taste the words on your tongue—they’re bitter, and heavy, and too easily said._

_The sky flashes, and thunder rumbles across distant clouds—you see it rolling in from distant waves, the ocean choppy, the clouds angry and dark. It should have been a full moon, but only the barest glimpses of light slip through the growling dark._

_Forehead pressed against the cold glass of your bedroom window, you watch the tide lashes up upon your private beach—the sand darkens and lightens, and grows sodden with the storm. Driftwood tossed about of white-capped waves._

_._

_There’s someone standing on your beach._

_._

“Don’t leave me,” she’s saying, the words low and close to a whimper, and you press your eyes closed because it’s like a barb through your heart. Bleeding, and limping, and carved out at the middle. “Please, Lena, please.”

It’s the inevitability you’ve both been ignoring for decades now—as you grew older, and she stayed the same. She’d hold your brittle hands between hers and kiss each knuckle like she always did—light, careful, and with love. She’d never mention when the chemo made your hair fall out, or when it made you sick. She was always just—there.

Eternally there.

She makes you feel young, even now as you thread withered fingers through her hair until you could curl them against the back of her neck. She hiccups, a gasping sound that only makes you hold her tighter.

“You don’t beat time, sweetheart,” you tried, damn did you try, but there was only so much your human body would allow. “But we had a run, didn’t we?”

Ninety years together in one way or another—forty more than you probably should have had, but you _are_ Lena Luthor after all. Reality was fifty percent what you made it. Ninety years, sixteen planets, three universes, and a pretty epic story—if you do say so yourself.

“I miss you,” she’s saying, and you squeeze your eyes shut, because she already sounds lost. In that type of darkness that allows no hope—the kind that sinks a heart and punctures a soul.

“I’m here,” you echo your much younger self—a woman who didn’t _know_ everything that would happen. That didn’t _know_ forever hurts even though who had no expectations for it.

“Not for long,” she says. Looking up at you with blue, blue eyes gone dark with pain—no red, never red, but the tears caught in her lashes glint and drip. Down her cheek, off her perfect chin. You drag a withering thumb across her cheek and Kara leans into your touch—a soul older than yours living in those eyes.

“I’m not dead yet, Kara,” you promise, because you’ll drag yourself through a few more years unaided if you must. No more miracle cures, no more operations, no more indignities—force of will alone has always done you wonders. “Not yet.”

.

_Supergirl’s dead—but Kara isn’t._

_Standing on your beach in the black of night and sheets of rain she’s never looked more herself—drenched, and wide eyed, and holding something like hope inside her._

_“I don’t think I’m that person anymore,” she whispers into your hair as you hold her close—her fingers alighting across your shoulders, her body shuddering in something that’s hardly physical. She’s solid, and whole, and you’ve never been more grateful to have been wrong. “I don’t think I’m Supergirl.”_

_It’s a late-night confession that you can only just make out over the half-sob that’s escaping you—you catch her by the cheeks when you pull away, holding her between your palms as if that will stop her from ever going away._

_“Be whoever you want,” and you kiss her._

_Kara stands there—cold, and wet, and unmoving—until something inside her gives. Slumping just a little into your hold, into your kiss, she paws at the wet silk of your nightgown—pulling you closer until your breathing in the scent of her through half open lips. You’re saying her name over, and over, and over—_

_\--Kara, Kara, Kara—_

_—and she’s drinking you down like a woman dying of thirst. Lifting you just enough that you might wrap legs around her waist, strong hands holding the weight of you against her. You’re ensconces in her, surrounded by her, and it doesn’t seem at all strange that you haven’t kissed her in almost twenty years. It seems **right**._

_You haven’t been waiting, and neither has she—but you’re here now, and she sobs into you._

_“I’m here,” she says, and it’s all you need right now._

.

_“I’m here,” she says again later that night—almost morning—lips pressing hot lines up the back of your neck. The scent of ozone in your nose, on your skin, in your hair—you ache in ways that satisfy, and that numb spot on your shoulder feels like a badge worth wearing._

.

You’re laying across the couch in your office with your head in Kara’s lap—you’re pretending to read documents that absolutely don’t require your attention right now, and she’s reading the Garfield comics that still run in the newspaper. Stifling a laugh every few minutes. The glasses you have to wear now slip just a little and before you can adjust them, she’s carefully sliding them up your nose.

Glancing up, you realize she’s stopped reading.

She’s smiling down at you with blistering eyes.

“You’re adorable in these glasses,” she says, nose crinkling like it always has, and you can only shake your head at her. You must be scowling because she smiles, running fingertips up your nose and across your forehead. “I know, I know—Luthors aren’t adorable.”

“Damn right,” you return, letting your papers flop onto your stomach without even bothering to pretend that she’s interrupting you—her hair’s shorter than usual, a little choppy with hints of a color that’s almost red. Having her just be here makes you feel strong—make you believe in tomorrow, and all the days after that—but you’re too old to believe in forever, and pretending doesn’t help anymore.

Doesn’t help anyone.

“Caroline’s flying home to read you the riot act,” Kara says, eyebrows up with a grin that’s probably just a hint devilish. The hurt’s there but it’s tucked away into blue, blue eyes—swirling in the guileless color that you so desperately have tried drowning in over the years.

“I’ve made my choice,” you say because this is something you won’t budge on—not when Caroline cries, not when she yells, and begs, and cajoles. Not when your heart’s breaking and your soul bleeding—not when you think that you’ll do anything just to make her happy again.

You wish you could be convinced—but not this time.

Kara doesn’t look happy, she doesn’t look pleased—but there’s a horrible acceptance in her now, a brittle little knowledge that’s moments from shattering her. And you wish more than anything that you weren’t the cause.

“I know,” she says, fingers tripping over your cheek, and across your bottom lip.

.

_Supergirl’s been dead— **missing** —for three years when Kara Timzeht graduates._

_She’s the newest police officer on the streets of National City, and you think she’s made the right choice—you don’t think Kara can leave all of the heroics behind. Can’t **stop** saving people because she’s come out the other side of some realization—she might not be Supergirl, but she’s still a hero. With a heart as gold as the crown of her head._

_She looks positively scrumptious in her uniform, and it’s the first time you’re really noticing that she’s exactly the same—young, and untouched by time. She’s nearing fifty and she looks fresh faced and young next to people twenty years her junior—and there’s something about how she looks at you that lets you know this **isn’t** the first time **she’s** noticed._

_She looks at you like someone she’s watching walk away—someone stepping, and stepping, and stepping until there’s only footprints on the beach and a tide threatening to wash it all away._

_“You look dashing,” you grin, straightening her tie just a little and rubbing a thumb across the badge on her chest. “You always did look good in a uniform.”_

_“It fits,” she says, shrugging her shoulders like she means the shirt, but there’s that look you’re noting. That **knowledge**._

_“It does,” you agree, because this is who she is. Serve and protect— **stronger together**._

_You try not to notice how frail your hands are looking—or the white splitting through the dark of your hair at the temples. You try not to flinch when your youngest daughter—only two—tugs at them and giggles. Time has you firmly in its grasp, and there’s only so much you can do about it—only so much you can influence._

_._

_That night, wrapped in her arms, pretending that this is your forever, you think to ask something you haven’t in over a year._

_“Timzeht,” you say softly, breaking the quiet. “What does it mean?”_

_Kara runs a hand over the blade of your hip and up the softening flat of your stomach—she runs a thumb pad tenderly over the marks from carrying your children. She cherishes them in a way that endears her even more to you._

_If it was even possible._

_“Tomorrow,” she murmurs into the back of your neck, and you frown._

_“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”_

_“No,” nose rubbing back and forth against the top notch of your spine. “ **Timzeht** is Kryptonian for tomorrow.”_

_._

Tomorrow, a place no one will ever reach.

Except maybe her.

.

“Cat used to tell me humans were like balloons,” Kara’s saying and you’re only half awake—you’re in bed and she’s sitting with her back against your headboard. The sun has fallen below the horizon and the rest of the house has gone quiet—all your children, and grandchildren, have found themselves to bed hours ago.

Kara used to try sneaking into the house, but having her found in your bed at three in the morning by a frightened ten year old was traumatic for everyone involved.

“Delicate and full of hot air?” You intone, eyes closed. Your bedroom smells like salt and thunderstorms and it comforts you—it’s the smell that you’ve set to Kara for years now. Ozone and western breezes.

“No, silly,” she laughs—softer than soft—and there’s enough shuffling that you know she’s sliding down in the bed—she’s careful not to jostle you, but you’d never mind if the end result was having Kara Zor-El—Danvers, Grant, Timzeht, Kent—wrapped around you.

“She used to tell me that people were born with this little pinprick in them—this tiny little hole—and that’s when you start dying.” It’s morbid, and poignant, and absolutely something Cat Grant would say. You sometimes even miss Kara’s late wife, miss knowing there was someone out there who knew what it meant to love this benevolent almost-god. This sweet hearted titan with careful hands and a tender heart. “And everything you do is to forget—to quiet the hiss of escaping air. You fill your life with noise, and people, and joy, and all you can imagine, because you don’t want to remember that it all ends eventually.”

Kara has a hand on your hip, warm and open, and you don’t stop yourself from wrapping your arthritic fingers around hers to pull her palm against your sternum. She’s quiet and you can hear the waves pushing up onto the beach, and the rolling rumble of distant faraway thunder—tomorrow’s storm, because tonight feels almost perfect.

“But everyone runs out of air—after years and decades, or popped too soon.” And so many people were _popped_ —a life of heroics is equally as full of tragedy. You imagine Clark would have reached the same conclusions as Kara eventually—that he might not have a pinprick, that he wasn’t losing air—but he’d gone far too young.

You turn—a much harder task than you want it to be—and you can barely see her in the dark without your glasses. You’re full of more mechanical parts than some appliances—perks of being an engineering tycoon. She’s watching you with eyes bright like a cat; the blue dark and reflective, and you can almost imagine that tomorrow storm in them. Little flashes of lightening, the rolling rumble of thunder.

“I don’t hear it.” No, you can only hear the waves, and feel kara’s heart under your palm, and listen for the quiet of your house—a house that seemed empty for so long until your children, and their families, and _their_ children. The dark used to be oppressive, but you have this gentle titan and your family still—you’re one of the lucky ones who got to stay.

“Maybe you don’t have any air left,” she says it quietly, face lost to the dark of night and the blur of your deficient eyes.

“Maybe,” you murmur, because you’re old, and pragmatic, but so fucking in love. Kara understands, you know she does—but you need her to hear it. This night—with a perfect western breeze and a tomorrow thunderstorm. “Joy, and people, and all you can imagine. You’re it for me, Kara Zor-El—you’re all those things. No damned pinprick would stand a chance once you came into my life.”

Kara smiles—a slash of white in the dark that makes your mostly mechanical heart skip a beat, or three.

“You’re a charmer, Miss Luthor.” She’s leaning forward to kiss you, the most chaste press of lips that makes you smile in return.

“It’s my best quality.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. I could name a bunch of better things about you,” she’s pulling you in closer—her body curving around yours and she kisses your forehead. “Your beautiful brain.” Your cheek, at the corner of your mouth, “your enchanting smile.” You can feel her grinning against your neck where her lips end next—her nose tucked up behind your ear, in hair gone white decades ago.

“Are you going to start telling me my personality is what attracted you?” You’re exhausted—even though you haven’t really done much of anything today—and you’re comfortable in the warmth of her body.

Kryptonians must hold some of that yellow sun right below their impenetrable skin.

“No, it was definitely the short skirts and casual authority,” Kara’s as slack as someone can be who’s always waiting for something to follow. Limbs wrapped around you loosely, your head finding a place on her upper chest—the beat of her alien heart strong in your ear. “I have a type.”

.

_“I want to show you something.” Kara had said, which is why you’re sitting on the top of the world—the highest ledge of L-Corp Tower—far below are people living their lives, and you can only just make out the little black specks moving about._

_“Is this what we look like to you up here?” You ask the woman at your side—she sits on the edge with a carelessness of someone who isn’t afraid of falling. “Little meaningless specks.” To someone so strong, someone who remains impervious—you try to imagine it. Untouched by time, the scars inside where they can never be cataloged._

_“I’ve always felt humbled by humanity,” she admits, kicking shoes scuffed and well-worn out a little so that you could see the black streaked white rubber tip. “You know how to **live**. Everything on Krypton was so—it was planned, **we** were planned. Who we bonded with, what we did, how many children we had—it wasn’t until I landed here that I realize everything that was possible. How good people can be when given a chance.”_

_You try to imagine a world without your children—even without you mad brother; you try to imagine it without Kara, and none of it makes sense. You could have been such a different person—you could have be remade into caustic edges and your worst pieces of self if it wasn’t for her._

_“You’re the best of us, Kara,” you’re not looking because you can feel her eyes on you—leaning back and to the side, your shoulder rests on hers and you exhale. It’s cool up here, even this far into the summer. “You’re might not be human, but in all the ways that count? You’re the best of us.”_

_Kara laughs. “You’re kind of biased.”_

_“Oh, absolutely,” it’ll be a few hours to sundown, but you don’t mind waiting. “But I’m also right.”_

_._

_She never does tell you what she wanted to show you._

_._

You’re tired—so tired.

“I love you,” you say into the hush of night, the tightening of her arms around you lets you know she’s awake. “I love you so much, that every hurt’s been worth it. And I want you to know I’m only who I am today—and yesterday, and the day before that—because of you.”

“You’re wrong,” Kara says, words lost in the white of your hair. “You would have been amazing without me. You would have been _good_ without me.”

She knows your fears—the ones that linger and cling deep below everything surface and known about you. The fear that creeps in when you’re looking in the mirror for the same hints of madness you’d been able to find in Lex all those years ago.

Everything feels slow, like time is giving you this moment—the _tick tock_ in the tension of your jaw loosens and you feel so much younger. Untouched.

“I’m better with you,” it’s a fact, it’ll always be a fact.

“I’m better with you, too.” She’s sniffling, talking against the skin of your neck, and you feel the trickle of tears into your hair. “I love you, Lena Luthor. I’ve loved you what feels like my whole life.”

It only feels right that she’s here. A Luthor and a Super—always together.

Stronger together.

“Promise me you’ll be okay?” An exhale that’s long, and slow—a hiss of sound. Your lungs releasing, and releasing, and releasing until you have nothing left in your chest. Your heartbeat sits in your jaw, but you can’t remember it being anywhere else—can’t remember the _thump_ of it in your chest.

“Aren’t I always?” It’s sad, and soft, and you squeeze your eyes shut.

Sleep tugs you under as you have a thought—you knew.

You didn’t realize it for a while, but you knew.

You think she did too.

.

Empty of air, that little hiss that was you stops.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry? feel free to yell at me on tumblr @ **civilorange**.


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